ok this is a long request so pls bare with me haha
So the reader is an elf in the very depths of the workshop underground, and they work as the head elf for the potions department which hasn’t been needed for centuries, then Bernard accidentally stumbles down there and the reader tries to get him to leave. Bernard wants to know what’s going on so the reader teaches him how to make potions and explains stuff but is kinda reluctant?
Or an enemies to lovers w Bernard either one lol
K bai love u <33333
Hi, really loved this request did my best to kinda mix the two! If you guys want another great enemies to lovers @neils-weenie-whistle has a great one, they are a fantastic writer!
Story of us
Summary: Bernard and you had always been close, Until an accident in your department forced a rift between you. Worried about your influence over Charlie, Bernard gets over himself long enough to talk to you. He ends up getting over himself enough to discover that what happened between you two wasn't for the best.
Truth be told, Bernard and you had been friends at one point in time. Long ago when you were both young, but ended quick and fast like a birthday candle being blown out by an eager child. You never wanted it to end, but all things do.
Bernard and you were around 1,000 when your long friendship had ended. It was many, many Christmases ago and you had just gotten the job you wanted, Head of Christmas Spirit and Cheer! Every elf has a role at North Pole, many have been training for that role their whole life. Bernard and you certainly had.
Bernard had always been more ambitious than you. Instead of settling for a head of department position, his eyes were fixated on the head elf position. No one could deny how perfect he was for the job. Even if someone did speak out against, which did happen once in a while, you always supported him.
Then one faithful Christmas, it fell apart like some crappy, human-made toy. Working in the Christmas Spirit and Cheer was never easy. Elves in the Department dedicated their lives to keeping the magic of Christmas alive. It was your job to keep kids believing for as long as possible, and sadly, that year, lots of parents decided that telling their kids that Santa wasn't real was just a great idea!
You, as Head of the department, had rallied a team of your best elves to go to the human world and bring Christmas cheer back to children! It was a risky mission, but something had to be done.
It was the last house and the mission so far had been a success, so you could have never expected it to go so wrong so fast. Making it through the sleeping house was easy, even with the family's 3 dogs. Your team had made everything timed out perfectly, every possible situation thought out beforehand.
The plan was to visit the family's oldest daughter and give her the sweetest Christmas dream! The kind of dream that when you woke up, you'd do anything to fall back asleep. Well, you had reached the room and saw the peaceful girl bundled up in her cozy covers. Slowly you made your way to her bed, watching every step you made with careful and calculated precision. As you softly placed the pads of your fingers on her temples, when it happened. She woke up in a fearful scream and when she saw a group of 4 short elves wearing all black, her poor mind took all the unknown pieces and twisted the scene. Thankfully your team made it back safely, disappearing into a cloud of glitter before her parents could see.
That didn't mean everything was good though. The girl’s mind told her that you and your team were evil creatures of the night. The fear that had crept into her mind kept her up sobbing in her mother's arms all night. That might have been salvageable with a perfect Christmas day, but she went to school and told all her friends of evil elves and dark magic. That completely tainted your reputation, and your relationship with Bernard.
You remember how mad he was at you, how he had screamed at you. Bernard had never raised his voice like that, especially not at you. You remember when he threatened taking your position away. Saying how you weren't deserving of it. Like he hadn't watched you study magic for years, like all those nights where he had to come over to put you to sleep cause he knew you'd stay up all night practicing a new enchanting spell, never existed. It was your fault, nothing from your training had prepared you for it. The girl didn't look like she was having a nightmare.
No matter how many times you apologized, how many times you bit your tongue and let him talk down to you, nothing would fix it. Nothing could fix it. In Bernard's eyes you had ruined Christmas. Even if every other elf had forgiven you, which they had, he wouldn't. You knew why, It was his first year as Head Elf and you ruined Christmas. In his eyes, that was a failure on his part and you would have to deal with it.
Many Christmas had passed since then, you had even gotten a new Santa. Scott Calvin was his name. His son Charlie was just the cutest. Every elf loved him to death and Charlie loved him just as much. However, Charlie had taken a certain liking to you. That very first night at the Pole, Charlie begged you to show him every spell you knew. You simply explained how you didn't have enough hours in the day to show anyone everything you could do. Bernard scoffed at that. Thinking of you as arrogant, a show-off who didn't even need to show off! You let it slide.
What you didn't let slide was Bernard telling you off about how Charlie told all his friends about all the cool things you could do. You just couldn't see the problem with Charlie being excited about Christmas, about him getting over kids to believe.
“Y/N, how can you not see the issue here?” Bernard’s scolding office followed you through the workshop as you desperately tried to escape it. Every turn you took you prayed you'd lose him. Your unit was in the bottom floor of the workshop, it gave you space to brew special potions and teach your teammates new spells. Sadly, the journey there was confusing enough to lose the Head Elf that followed your every move like clockwork.
As you reached the large door which led to the laboratory, you sharply turned around. Your action must have caught Bernard off as he took a wary step back, confusion flooded into his eyes. “You're so right, Bernard!” Your malicious voice filled the corridor, “I don't see the issue with it!” crossing your arms as you scoffed.
Bernard stood there frozen, you had never raised your voice at. No matter how frustrated you seemed, you kept it to yourself. Bernard went to rebuke what you had said, but you cut him off sharply. “If you haven't noticed, since Charlie has become friends with me, belief rates in kids have skyrocketed! You should be happy!” A cunning smirk graced your lips, bitterness oozed with each word you spoke.
“I….Oh! So I should be thanking you? Is that what you want? To be praised?” You rolled your eyes at his sarcastic words. You didn't want him to thank you, you wanted an apology. Yet, you'd never say that, never confess to how you stay awake at night wishing he'd show up at your door telling you how sorry he is for everything.
Instead of asking for a simple apology, you sneered at him. “I'm not you, Bernard. I don't need to be constantly uplifted and petted to know my worth.” You knew it was a low blow. He was just adding diesel to the fire. At times, you truly felt that Bernard had forgotten about how close the two of you had once been. It hurt more than a thousand cuts.
You didn't want to feel sorry for the words you spoke so indignantly, you wanted it to hurt. Then you saw the confused pain in Bernard's warm eyes, and you want to drop your mask and this meaningless rivalry. “I don't need praise…” Bernard's voice was meek, he seemed so unsure of the words and his body defense didn't help. Bernard looked small, smaller than normal. He was crouched over himself, hands on his hips.
“Are you sure about that, Mister Head Elf?” You retorted, your cold gaze meeting his puzzled face. “Cause last time I checked you have to make everyone love you so much, but then you leave them to rot once they've stopped benefitting you.” The words came from somewhere deep within your heart. Perhaps the place you held all your bittersweet sorrow, most being caused by a certain curly haired Head Elf.
Bernard's puzzled face contorted into dumbstruck disdain. “Now you're just saying stuff! I would never leave an elf behind, you know that!”
“Oh, do you?”
aching pain broke through and interlaced itself with your words. Bernard felt the raw emotion course through him like a wildfire, as if it set the whole North Pole ablaze.
“Cause last time I checked, you left an elf behind when they needed you the most. You left when I felt like the biggest failure ever! In fact, you only made it worse, Bernard!” Your voice echoed through him, making him feel hollow inside.
The words rung throughout his head. He had meant to leave you, had he left you? Bernard thinks back to how close you two had been when the incident happened. He felt that if he took a step back, stopped acting like your friend and started acting like your boss, You'd get better. The longer he stood there before you, your piercing eyes never leaving him, he realized how had improved. You ran probably the most successful department at the North Pole and your magic radiated off of you. Bernard also realized it was because you two had stopped being friends, It was because he left you feeling alone. He remembered how mad everyone was at you for that Christmas, and the following. Bernard left you when you needed him the most, that wasn't what friends were for.
Truth be told, Bernard was more than just a friend to you. You were then just a friend for him! All the other Elves saw how you looked at each other, it wasn't hard to see the love behind your eyes. Bernard was gonna tell you how he felt that Christmas, but then everything happened and he felt like that would have worsened it all. Now he realizes that it would have been for the best if he told you.
You watched Bernard's eyes swell up, it flushed the bitterness off your face almost immediately. “Y/N…” Bernard's heartbroken tone never failed to make you forget whatever he had said or done that made you angry. When you were friends, the two of you would argue from time to time; The moment you saw a single tear roll down his freckled cheeks, you'd cast all your anger aside. You opened your mouth, but only his words met the air.
“What I did was so wrong. I never meant for it to go this far…” If how heartbroken he sounded just calling your name wiped the bitterness from your face, how soft and scared he sounded just then cleansed you of all your years worth of built up anger and hurt. His eyes moved from the ground, which he had been once staring so contently at, to scan your face. He looked to be searching, searching for something you guessed to be forgiveness. If it was forgiveness, he had found it.
“I just didn't know why you left, Bernard. I knew I messed up. I ripped myself apart every night thinking about it, but what you did was just as dark.” You hadn't noticed you had teared up until you tasted the salty tear hit the side of your lip.
“I know! It hurt me too, I just felt like- like if maybe I left- maybe if i stopped being your friend or whatever we were- you wouldn't be t-tied down.” Bernard's words were fast and tripped over themselves, but so genuine it hurt. You couldn't help but wanna smile at the mention of Bernard and you being more than friends. You had liked him so much back then and you felt like he liked you too, but then you just felt tolerated- some days, not even that.
“Bernard, you weren't tying me down. That mission didn't go sideways because you and I were friends…or whatever we were….It went sideways ‘cause I scared a little girl. I got cocky and moved too fast. I've come to live with that.” Biting your lip, you turned your gaze away from the Head Elf. You were now the one who felt his hot gaze pierce into you. You let out a shaky breath, “I, however, could never live with the fact that you didn't want me anymore. I'm sorry that I made this break harder on you, I hadn't realized you…didn't hate me.”
Hate you? You thought Bernard hated you? Bernard wanted to throw himself on you, tell you how he could never, ever hate you. Tell you how much you had meant to him, how much you still meant to him. His eyes rolled, something you found them often doing, but this time it wasn't out of sarcasm or spite- It was something you couldn't name. “I could never hate you, Y/N. You mean far too much to me, I only wanted you to grow. standing before you, I have realized that I could have watched you grow right by your side…I didn't have to watch from afar.”
You smiled softly, your nose scrunching up. It was a smile that could make your cheeks hurt if it didn't go away, and you had a peculiar feeling that it wouldn't leave anytime soon. “You watched me…from afar?” it was warm, your words felt like a warm embrace, something Bernard that felt from you in a long time.
“Maybe…You're just so graceful when you do all your magic stuff. Charlie really likes watching it, and I just want to keep an eye on him!” If you weren't looking right at him, you could hear the cheery smile in his voice.
“Mhm….look after him? You know I'd never hurt him! You just liked watching me!” retorting playfully, your hands fall onto your hips, mocking Bernard’s pose.
“You're rather enchanting when you do all your cool hand motions and magic and It's just soothing! You have this way of just drawing people in, I always find myself just caught in your haze and it's not m-” Bernard's mindless ramble, with his hands speaking just as just as fast as himself, made you chuckle to yourself, causing him to catch himself. He bit his lip, a nervous action he did when he felt as if he's said too much.
You reached out to grab his nervous, fidgety hands. “I caught myself watching you too. You get so in the zone when you oversee the workshop, sometimes I'd sneak up to watch you. Curtis always tended to catch me, he wanted him to get over myself and say something. I just couldn't…” Bernard smiled, now knowing his ‘unrequited’ feelings weren't totally unrequited, in fact they were the opposite.
Somehow you convinced Bernard to take the day off, telling him how Christmas was still months away and everyone was right on track. He let himself have the day, he couldn't miss the opportunity of getting to call you his for a second time.
